{"id":5747,"date":"2024-06-09T08:38:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T15:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5747"},"modified":"2024-06-09T08:38:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T15:38:30","slug":"connie-berry-a-collection-of-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/connie-berry-a-collection-of-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Connie Berry: A Collection of Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Hamilton #5<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Even though this is book five in an established series, I was able to comfortably settle in with Berry\u2019s characters, setting, and story right away. The series features antiques expert Kate Hamilton, and in this instalment she\u2019s on honeymoon in Devon with her police detective husband, Tom Mallory.\u00a0 In true mystery tradition, it\u2019s a busman\u2019s honeymoon, as they\u2019ve also taken on a private job to verify the provenance of a blood covered dress from the 1880s, which supposedly belonged to a murderess.<\/p>\n

While Kate and Tom are just looking to verify the provenance of the dress, they also become interested in the original crime.\u00a0 The dress has been donated to the Combe Mallett museum of Devon history by an eccentric man who lives as closely as possible as a Victorian gentleman. He wears period clothes, is restoring his home to its original iteration, and even employs a housekeeper dressed in apron and mob cap. When Kate and Tom go to question him he is cagey, only revealing that he bought the dress as part of a lot he purchased.<\/p>\n

Berry does a lovely job of fleshing out the historical details of the area, the dress and even the possible life of the woman who wore it.\u00a0 The textile expert at the museum, who is meticulously restoring the garment, provides Kate with many clues and fascinating details about her work.\u00a0 The area was famous, for example, for Honiton lace<\/a> made by women who were often sent to lace making schools at very young ages.\u00a0 The bloody dress, while obviously belonging to a working-class woman, is nevertheless adorned with a lace collar.<\/p>\n

I very much appreciate an amateur sleuth who uses his or her professional skills to solve the crime rather than just stumbling over corpses.\u00a0 While Kate isn\u2019t strictly an amateur when she\u2019s working with her husband on a specific case, in her day-to-day life she\u2019s mainly an antiques appraiser and expert.\u00a0 Other series that have done this well include Joanne Dobson\u2019s Karen Pelletier books, Sarah Stewart Taylor\u2019s Sweeney St. George novels, and more recently, Elly Griffiths\u2019 wonderful Ruth Galloway series.\u00a0 All the women in these books are experts in their respective fields and it\u2019s that very expertise that lends validity to their investigations.<\/p>\n

As Tom works with the police after the inevitable death, Kate is investigating a parallel case, discovering what she can about the dress while at the same time reporting back and consulting with Tom and the Devon police in charge of the murder investigation.\u00a0 The suspect pool is small but rich, and the characters in the story, whether involved with the museum or local politics, complex and interesting.<\/p>\n

This is not a cozy exactly, but it\u2019s adjacent. Kate and her husband seem to be very happy and the Devon setting (and the food) add a layer of domesticity to the story.\u00a0 Kate and Tom aren\u2019t there to upset the apple cart but remain the story\u2019s calm center as the storm rages around them. In my opinion there\u2019s really no more cozy element than that, with the fascinating mystery Berry weaves as icing on this delicious mysterious confection.\u00a0 I am kicking myself for not discovering this series sooner, and plan to rectify that shortly by devouring books one through four.\u00a0\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kate Hamilton #5 Even though this is book five in an established series, I was able to comfortably settle in with Berry\u2019s characters, setting, and story right away. The series features antiques expert Kate Hamilton, and in this instalment she\u2019s on honeymoon in Devon with her police detective husband, Tom Mallory.\u00a0 In true mystery tradition, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1724,724,1722,190,1723,1725,1276,1436],"class_list":["post-5747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-collection-of-lies","tag-antiques","tag-connie-berry","tag-honeymoon","tag-kate-hamilton","tag-lace-making","tag-robin-agnew","tag-traditional-detection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}